Kasich education plan focuses on funding students

Funding the student, not the district, is the theme for Gov. John Kasich’s two-year education funding plan.

By Lisa Reicosky

Times Reporter

By Lisa Reicosky

Posted Jan. 31, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jan 31, 2013 at 4:04 PM

By Lisa Reicosky

Posted Jan. 31, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Jan 31, 2013 at 4:04 PM

COLUMBUS

Funding the student, not the district, is the theme for Gov. John Kasich’s two-year education funding plan.

Kasich presented his long-anticipated plan to superintendents and charter school leaders at a Buckeye Association of School Administrators meeting Thursday.

Kasich’s Director for 21st Century Education, Richard Ross, said the plan is designed to drive dollars to the classroom and reward good ideas.

If approved by the Ohio General Assembly, school districts would not experience any drop in funding in the next two years (July 1 to June 2015). However, Ross said, that level of funding would not be sustainable and would have to eventually decline.

Ross said the state has doubled the funds going to schools over the last 12 years, yet achievement has remained flat.

Barbara Mattei-Smith, the governor’s policy director for education, said the plan addresses funding disparities between poor and wealthy districts. The state, she said, will raise all districts up to the level of those that have an average property value of $250,000. State equalization funds will add 15 mills to the poorest districts to give them a solid base.

The budget includes over the biennium:

• Funding of $190 million for special needs students, plus $45 per pupil in every school to fund gifted students;

• Additional support of $207 million for 3- and 4-year-olds with disabilities;

• New funding of $185 million for districts with the least amount of access to public preschool programs.

For-profit charter schools will see an increase in state funding with those schools receiving the same dollar amount per student as their public counterparts, along with $100 more per student to help pay for facilities.

The first year of the plan allows vouchers to attend private schools for every kindergarten student in districts that are 200 percent below poverty. The second year, that offer extends to first-graders.